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Mill Run F3-1 955 






An Appreciation 

of 

Padralr H. p^aro^ 

jfftrat Preset nl of tiff 3raij fepubltr 




BY 



William <S. fJamll, <$.<&.<E 



SEP BO 191° 




Padraic H. Pearse 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/appreciationofpaOOofar 






To 

The Very Reverend Peter Eli as Magennis, 
o. c. c. 

As a token 

Of a life-long esteem and an appreciation 

Of his untiring efforts in the cause of Ireland, 

This essav is affectionately dedicated. 



Chas. F. Connolly, Union Label Printer 
1920 Lexington Avenue 
New York 



FOREWORD 

The scant leisure time afforded me from my 
missionary duties I willingly and with much 
pleasure devoted to reading and lecturing 
about Ireland's hero and martyr, Padraic H. 
Pearse. After the first lecture delivered in 
Xew York City, an editor of a weekly paper 
approached me for the manuscript which I was 
unable to give for the simple reason that such 
a commodity was not in my possession. The 
request, however, was received by me as a hint 
to put my thoughts on paper, and this I did to 
such an extent that no editor, even the most 
willing, could be expected to publish them in 
a weekly paper. This together with the hope 
of making this great man known and conse- 
quently loved by the many who perhaps could 
not find time to peruse the pages of a more 
lengthy volume account for my ready submis- 
sion to the further suggestion to publish them 



in the present form. I am aware that this 
essay would be more complete had I been able 
to procure the remainder of Pearse's writings 
published in Ireland, but which owing to the 
paternal solicitude of a wise censor have not 
yet reached this side of the Atlantic. How- 
ever, the material I had to hand gives the char- 
acter, the thoughts, the aspirations of the man ; 
what remains treats more of his national life, 
and of this we may in truth say : "nothing be- 
came him in life like the leaving it." 

I wish to express my gratitude to Mr. Liam 
Mellows, F. D. E., an Irish patriot and an 
intimate friend of Padraic Pearse, for his valu- 
able suggestions in his reading of the proof 
sheets. 

The Author. 



A new era is dawning over the world. 
Europe is awakening" from "the nightmare 
sleep of nations beneath kings/ 7 and Freedom's 
sacred fire is all aglow in the hearts of indi- 
viduals and of peoples. Ireland's voice for 
freedom which has sounded incessantly 
through the dark ages of oppression to-day 
rings louder and more hopeful. Three years 
ago the tricolor of an Irish Republic was un- 
furled to the breeze, and men beheld with joy 
the approach of their long expected redemp- 
tion. It is natural that when the names of 
those who are hailed as the champions of lib- 
erty and justice are spoken of with the rever- 
ence due to a hero our thoughts should turn 
to him who was the soul of the Irish Republic, 
to him who died that Innisfail might live. 
Padraic Pearse might have been a noted bar- 
rister, a world renowned educationalist, a pro- 
found scholar, or a faithful disciple of Apollo. 
Instead he "turned his back on the dream he 
had shaped" and set his face to walk another 
road and to do another work. To this end he 
would devote the best energies of a gifted mind 
and a healthy body, to accomplish his ideal he 
would pay the supreme price. Unlike a Hamlet 
philosophising through an entire lifetime on 
the best means to use in following a dictate of 
conscience, once he determined that his coun- 

l 



try needed his service this son of the Gael 
went bravely and unflinchingly forward. 

Ireland's metropolis has the honor of being 
the birthplace of Padraic Pearse. He w r as one 
of a family of four, two sisters and one brother, 
William, who also was executed. His mother 
is an Irish Catholic, and his father was an Eng- 
lishman and a convert to Catholicity. Having 
completed his secondary education in the 
Christian Brothers' school where he began 
the study of his native tongue, he entered on a 
higher course of studies in the Catholic Uni- 
versity College then a teaching college for the 
old Royal under the control of the Jesuit 
Fathers now a constituent college of the Na- 
tional University of Ireland. Apparently no 
cleverer than the average student the years of 
his university training were distinguished only 
by a careful and diligent study of the Irish 
language and literature ; and an earnestness 
which characterised him in all his endeavours. 
He graduated from this college receiving the 
degree of Bachelor of Arts, and shortly after- 
wards was called to the Bar. An instructive 
and an impressive, without being oratorical, 
speaker had he practised his profession his suc- 
cess was assured. Of a shy and retiring dis- 
position his conversation with the casual ac- 
quaintance on the ordinary topics of life was 
scant and prosaic. With the coterie of kindred 

2 



spirits and when the theme was an Irish- 
Ireland his speech had the zeal and power of 
a missionary. The peroration of his eulogy at 
the graveside of O'Donovan Rossa is a striking 
example. 

At the early age of sixteen he placed himself 
in' surroundings in which the ideal and the 
aspirations of his heart were to be realised. 
The Gaelic League stood for all that was best 
in the revival and the development of the tradi- 
tions of Romantic Ireland. Her industries, her 
language and literature, her music, her games 
and customs needed fostering if the couplet of 
Yeats : 

"Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, 
It's with O'Lcary in the grave," 
is to remain untrue. This is the task that that 
bright band of scholars undertook to do. What 
a congenial atmosphere for the true lover of 
Ireland! Here he would meet men whose 
thoughts and aspirations, in substance at least, 
were similar to his ; men of the calibre of Dr. 
Douglas Hyde a Gaelic scholar, and the Presi- 
dent of the Gaelic League with whom he be- 
came acquainted. His admiration for him he 
expressed in the words, "I have served under 
him since I was a boy. I am willing: to serve 
him until he can lead and I can serve no 
longer." He was appointed editor of An 
Claidheamh Soluis (The Sword of Light), 



the weekly paper of this organization. He 
studied Irish, and. in order that he might 
speak it more fluently, he used to dwell for 
months at a time in a little cabin amongst 
the peasants of Iar Connacht. By this so- 
journ in the beautiful wild West he gained 
a mastery over the language enabling him 
to continue the efficient editor of "the organ 
of militant Gaeldom." In this mouthpiece 
of an Irish-Ireland he clearly expressed his 
views in a number of articles written in the 
two vernaculars, Irish and English. In the 
performance of this fruitful employment he 
never relaxed his efforts until he left the office 
of An Claidheamh Soluis to assume the role 
of an educationalist. 

Pearse had something new to add to the 
meaning and true method of education. The 
issue for Christmas, 1909, of An Macamoh, 
(The Youth), an occasional review written for 
the pupils of St. Enda's school, contains his 
views on the scope of education. Many modern 
systems are decried without claiming: orisrinal- 
ity for his own. On the contrary he awards 
the palm to the solution of the Gaelic sages 
of two thousand years ago. With them "to 
educate" meant "to foster." The teacher was 
a "fosterer," and the pupil was a "foster-child." 
The function of the master was not "to guide," 
"to prepare for examinations," "to indoctri- 



nate." He was to develop the latent qualities 
of the child, to aid him to realise himself in the 
best and noblest way, and whilst doing so to re- 
gard each pupil as an individual human soul 
requiring individual fostering. 

When endorsing this method Pearse had in 
mind the baneful results of the "cramming" 
system occasioned by the Intermediate educa- 
tion of Ireland, resulting, in many secondary 
schools, in the neglect of those who refused 
"to be crammed." 

He goes on to develop what is implied in 
this theory of education. To perforin this God- 
given work the teacher should not be the re- 
jected of all other professions (another defect 
in the Intermediate schools). He should be 
endowed with the noblest qualities of soul, or 
mind, and body. The teachers should be "the 
captains; the poets, the prophets of their peo- 
ple." Again, that the child may be "fostered" 
two conditions are necessary. "In the first 
place," to use his own words, "education of a 
child is greatly a matter of congenial environ- 
ment and, next to this, of wise and loving 
watchfulness whose chief appeal will be to the 
finest instincts of the child itself." Writing of 
the congenial environment he must have re- 
called the hovels used as schools by the Na- 
tional Board in the country parts of Ireland. 

In the choice of method he favoured the bi- 



lingual system. To obtain a thorough knowl- 
edge of it he studied in Belgium and Holland, 
and decided that it was the method to use in 
the education of Irish youths where the teach- 
ing of their language is essential. It succeeded 
in Belgium, why not in Ireland? He would put 
it to the test by starting St. Enda's college for 
boys, the first Catholic lay college in Ireland. 
The success of the bi-lingual and of all Pearse's 
educational theories is gauged from the fact 
that owing to the sudden increase in the num- 
ber of the students St. Enda's had to be trans- 
ferred from Cullenswood House, Rathmines, 
Dublin, to a much more spacious eighteen-cen- 
tury mansion, the Hermitage, situated in 
Rathfarnham, a suburb of Dublin, and in the 
vicinity of the Irish Carmelite Novitiate. Cul- 
lenswood house was opened as a school for 
girls, and called after St. Ita, the Irish saint. 
The task of keeping alive the fast dying 
chivalry of an Irish nationhood must begin with 
the children. St. Enda's contained all that was 
necessary for its accomplishment. The con- 
genial environment was present in the beauti- 
ful grounds almost at the foot of the Dublin 
mountains, and the ancient castle whose walls 
were decorated with paintings depicting inci- 
dents in Irish history. The teachers were men 
after the Head-master's own standard. 
Thomas MacDonagh, scholar, poet and patriot, 



was the principal until like Pearse, he bore the 
suffering and death of the true patriot. These 
together with an Irish curriculum — text-books, 
games, and an Irish corps of boy-scouts 
(trained by Colbert, another sufferer in the 
Rebellion), commanded the approval of all 
those "who would bring back again in Ireland 
that Heroic Age which reserved its highest 
honor for the hero who had the most childlike 
heart, for the king who had the largest pity, 
and for the poet who visioned the truest image 
of beauty." 

Pearse's literary work began when he be- 
came editor of The Sword of Light. Now that 
he was engaged in the work of education all 
his compositions were directed to the same end. 
Pie wrote six plays and produced them some 
in St. Encla's, others in the Abbey Theatre, 
Dublin ; his brother, William, playing a leading 
part in most of them. A pageant of the "Boy- 
Deeds of Cuchulainn" was produced in 1909, 
the close of the first academic year of the col- 
lege. The story of the "small, dark, sad boy, 
comeliest of the boys of Eire," and a great part 
of the dialogue is taken from the Tain. The 
play abounds in the inspiration which the 
writer purposed to instil into the heart and 
mind of the pupils. "I am anxious," he writes, 
"to crown the first year's work with something 
worthy and symbolic ; anxious to send our boys 

7 



home with the knightly image of Cuchulainn 
in their hearts, and his knightly words ringing 
in their ears.' 1 The Elizabethan drama with 
Shakespeare as its perfection had its initial 
stages in the Passion, Miracle, and Morality 
plays, and the Irish drama was to begin in the 
same way. "Iosagan/' a miracle play was pro- 
duced in 1910, and the year following a "Pas- 
sion Play.'' The author being a devout Catho- 
lic, a religious strain is present in all his writ- 
ings, but in these two plays the theme is re- 
ligious. Of the former he writes in "An 
Macaomh." "Iosagan is not a play for ordi- 
nary theatres or for ordinary players. It re- 
quires a certain atmosphere and a certain at- 
titude of mind on the part of the actors. It 
has in fact been written for a performance in 
a particular place and by particular players. I 
know that in that place and by those actors it 
will be treated with the reverence due to a 
prayer." Founded on his story of the same 
name "Iosagan" (Little Jesus), is a repre- 
sentation of the mercy of God granted to an 
old man, Matthias, who had spent a careless, 
irreligious life. The eleventh hour conversion 
appears to be the reward of the old man's kind- 
ly love for the children to whom he sang 
nursery rhymes. The scene is laid in Iar-Con- 
nacht ; the characters are modelled on the peo- 
ple amongst whom he lived and with whom he 

8 



talked during his sojourn in this part of Ire- 
land. The tale is simply told and the moral 
carefully pointed. 

In 1912 he published a morality, "The 
King," and three years later "The Master," 
and "The Singer" appeared. "An Ri" resem- 
bles a play of Rabindranath Tagore, the two 
portraying the image of a humble boy and the 
pomp of death. Pearse writes of it: "Since I 
read Mr. Tagore's manuscript I have realised 
that the two plays are more similar in theme 
than I had suspected, and that mine will be to 
his in the nature of an "Amen.*" Of this and 
the "Master" it may be said, what is true of all 
his plays, that the characters are drawn from 
real life; a moral is intended. The ''Singer" 
is generally regarded to be his best dramatic 
effort and deserves more lengthy mention. 

Joseph Plunkett said of the "Singer": "If 
Pearse were dead this would cause a sensa- 
tion." Pearse himself denied that it was a per- 
sonal revelation, nevertheless detailed analysis, 
and comparison with his other writings and 
especially his life will show that Plunkett was 
not wrong. The principal character in the 
play is MacDara, the singer. The resemblance 
between this character and Pearse is so strik- 
ing that we may say with no small degree of 
probability that MacDara is Pearse himself. 
For instance, the description of MacDara 



given by Cuimin, a character in the play is 
equally true of Pearse. "Young, they say, he 
is and pale like a man that lived in cities. . . . 
shy in himself and very silent, till he stands up 
to talk to the people. And then he has the voice 
of a silver trumpet, and words so beautiful that 
they make the people cry. And there is a ter- 
rible ano-er in him, for all that he is shrinking 
and gentle." 

Pearse in his frequent references to the work 
that he must do for Ireland seems to have had 
a prophetic vision of the death he was to die. 
The "Singer" contains like forebodings regard- 
ing MacDara. "I seemed to see myself 
brought to die before a crowd that stood cold 
and silent." says MacDara, u and there were 
some that cursed me in their hearts for having 
brought death into their houses. Sad silent 
faces seemed to reproach me. Oh, the wise sad 
faces of the dead — and the keening of women 
rang in my ears." In this connection we should 
recall Pearse's description of a dream he had, 
"the only really vivid dream I ever had since 
I used to dream of hobgoblins when I was a 
child." He dreamt he saw a boy of his col- 
lege ascending a platform to die for Ireland's, 
or some other august cause. The boy was sur- 
rounded by a crowd that was neither friendly 
nor hostile but silent and unsympathetic. 
Those people looked upon him as a fool who 

10 



was throwing away his life, rather than as a 
martyr who was doing his duty. 

Again there is an apt description of Pearse 
in the remarks of MacDara about a poet: "He 
is only a voice that cries out, a sigh that trem- 
bles into rest. The true teacher must suffer 
and do. He must break bread to the people. He 
must suffer and go into Gethsemane, and toil up 
the steep of Golgatha." Mrs. Pearse can say of 
her son what Maire says of MacDara: "Mac- 
Dara is the Singer that has quickened the dead 
years and all the quiet dust." The play ends 
with the sublime thought elsewhere expressed 
by Pearse: "One man can free a people as one 
Man redeemed the world. I will take no pike, 
I will go into the battle with bare hands. I will 
stand up before the Gall as Christ hung naked 
before men on the tree." 

These and many other passages in the play 
are internal evidence of Plunkett's contention 
that the play is a personal revelation. The ar- 
gument is strengthened by a comparison. The 
two poems written the same year as the 
"Singer," namely, "The Fool," and "The 
Rebel" — are the same in theme and expression 
as the "Singer," there is little doubt but that 
the "fool," and the "rebel" is Pearse himself. 
In the "Singer," the schoolmaster asks Mac- 
Dara does he remember the poem he made 
about the robin he found perished on the door- 

11 



step. Recall Pearse's beautiful quattrain on 
a similar incident : 
"O Little bird, 
Cold to me thy lying on the flag: 
Bird, that never had an evil thought, 
Pitiful the coming of death to thee." 
, . . Apart from sentiment which must needs 
play a part in our admiration of the writings 
of Padraic Pearse, his plays have a value all 
their own. A plot is developed, a tale adorned, 
and a moral taught in the short space of an 
act, a recommendation in itself. They are a 
beginning of a New Literature, or rather the 
revival of an old literature which Doctor Kuno 
Meyer says "is the most primitive and original 
among the literatures of Western Europe." 
They possess, then, the attractive simplicity 
of rejuvenescence. They are Irish of the 
Irish; not, however, the Ireland of pagan 
times, but Ireland enjoying the choicest bless- 
ings of Christianity. How could it be other- 
wise since the scenes are laid and the charac- 
ters drawn from Iar-Connacht, a place more 
remote than any other from Anglo-Saxon 
influence. 

To understand aright what is meant by the 
Gaelic-Irish characters and atmosphere in 
Pearse's plays we have but to read them in 
conjunction with those of the writers con- 
nected with the Irish Literary Theatre. I take 

12 



this movement because it is contemporaneous 
with the Gaelic revival from which in all likeli- 
hood it received its inspiration. Certainly a 
place is claimed for it in the Gaelic 
Renaissance. It comprises play-writers whose 
productions are staged in the Abbey Theatre, 
Dublin. These writers, Yeats, Boyle, Synge, 
Lady Gregory, and others undertook to do 
for the Irish stage what was begun in 
England, France, and Germany in the last 
decade of the nineteenth century. Their pur- 
pose is to write plays dealing with Irish life. 
They are sincere. They succeed in "holding 
the mirror up to nature," but the reflection in 
some instances is of pagan Ireland and in 
many, if not all, the characters are not truly 
Irish. Not that they give a caricature, nor 
are they to be accused of the unpardonable 
fault of sneering. On the contrary, they are 
true to the original, the original, however, is 
Ireland under an alien government, and the 
characters are "hybrids" with a strange mix- 
ture of Irish and Anglo-Saxon, the latter 
predominating. For instance, one of the best 
known plays of William Boyle is "The Elo- 
quent Dempsey." Dempsey, the leading char- 
acter, a successful business man in the town 
of Cloghermore, desires to enter public life. 
Not content with becoming a Town-Councillor 
for which his influence with the people and his 

13 



eloquence adapted him, he wants to move in 
high society, "the upper ten/' by a government 
appointment to be a Justice of the Peace. To 
accomplish his plans he sides with the English 
officials to present an address to the Chief 
Secretary, whilst at the same time he signs a 
protest of the people against it. Stratagem, 
chicanery, are resorted to, but finally he falls 
to the ground — the inevitable lot of the man 
who tries to sit between two stools. 

In this satire on the ambitions of a foolish 
man there is a similarity to Moliere's "Le 
Bourgeois Gentilhomme," and written in the 
same spirit as the French lampoon. But 
Dempsey is not a Gaelic-Irish character. Yet 
he is not a mere fiction, for not a few of his type 
are to be found in Ireland. Who will regard 
them as Irish? MacDara in the "Singer/' 
and the eloquent Dempsey — they can be com- 
pared at least in their attitude to English rule 
— are as opposite as the poles. MacDara is 
ready to fight against the alien government; 
Dempsey seeks its honors. The one is the 
Gael; the other is the "Hybrid/' 

No one could think of Pearse being the 
author of "The Play-Boy of the Western 
World/' "A Family Failing/' and "Spreading 
the News," even had they been written in 
Gaelic. He, like these writers, would correct 
the shortcomings of his fellow-countrymen, 

14 



but his method is different. His correction is 
j)ositive not negative. True moralist that he 
is, he will stimulate men to practise the 
national virtues, more by showing them their 
beauty than by dwelling on the evil of the 
opposite vice. Besides, these plays are not the 
expression of Gaelic thought and life. 

Pearse, apart from his skill as a writer, must 
have been acquainted with the dramatic art. 
In play-writing it is not sufficient to produce 
a story or essay written in the form of a dia- 
logue or cathechism. There must be action. 
The play must move if its staging is to awaken 
and sustain interest. The motion is present 
if the situations flow from the characters. 
Pearse's plays, though short, abound in action, 
and in this respect also they are an advance 
on the Anglo-Irish plays, notably those of 
Lady Gregory. To use his own joke, all his 
masterpieces were written with a view to their 
performance and the boys to fill the different 
parts. What he has said of "Cuchulainn" is 
true of all, namely, "It does not contain a 
single unnecessary speech, a single unnecessary 
word." The preparation for the coming 
strife, the news of Colm's death, and the de- 
parture of MacDara, in the "Singer;" the 
noise of battle in which the king is beaten, 
the arrival of the defeated monarch to ask a 
blessing of the abbot, the going forth of the 

15 



Boy-king, in "An Ri/' afford no dull moment 
from the rise to the fall of the curtain in these 
two plays. 

The Irish drama, as the literature in general, 
is still in its infancy. Much remains to be 
perfected. Youthful writers can do no better 
than build up and adorn the dramatic edifice 
on the foundation laid by Pearse and his 
associates. 

It speaks well for the simplicity and the 
purity of heart of a man when he is attracted 
to children and they to him. Padraic Pearse 
possessed the Christ-like love for the little 
ones. He studied them, and understanding 
them, he loved them. Had he written a psy- 
chology of the child-mind, it would have been 
a valuable contribution to mental science. His 
ten short stories show a sympathetic insight 
into the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, 
the spirituality and the shortcomings of the 
little denizens of Iar Connacht, placing them 
high amongst the juvenile tales of modern 
writers. Originally written in Irish, they have 
lost little of their simple expressiveness in the 
English translation, whilst at the same time 
they are made accessible to those who are not 
familiar with the language of the Gael. Ac- 
cording to the dictum of Dryden, "A thing 
well said will be wit in all languages," I think 
the stories of Pearse wil 1 retain the moral 

16 



force and charm of simplicity, no matter what 
the mode of expression may be. The transla- 
tions themselves seem to give a new style of 
English prose, which though far removed 
from the use of ponderous words, reaches a 
high level of description. Here is a passage 
from the simple charming little tale of "Eoi- 
neen of the Birds," one from a number of 
similar word-pictures: k The 'piper of the 
ashes' (the cricket) came out, and started on 
his heartsome tune. The mother stayed by 
the heartside, pondering. The little boy stayed 
on his airy seat, watching. The cows came 
home from the pasture. The hen called to her 
her chickens. The blackbird and the wren, and 
the other little people of the wood went to. 
sleep. The buzzing of the flies was stopped, 
and the bleating of the lambs. The sun sank 
slowly till it was close to the bottom of the 
sky, till it was exactly on the bottom of 
the sky, till it was under the bottom of the 
sky. A cold wind blew from the east. The 
darkness spread on the earth. At last Eoineen 
came in. 

"I fear they won't come this night/' says 
he. "Maybe, with God's help, they might come 
to-morrow." 

In this passage we have a painting in minia- 
ture of a wayside cottage in the country part 
of Ireland at the close of evening. There is 

17 



no profusion. No word of more than two 
syllables. The whole is simplicity without 
being "simplesse." 

Four of the ten stories are translations of 
"Iosagan agus Sgealta Eile;" the remaining 
six of "An Matair." In all, with one excep- 
tion — "Brigid of the Songs" — the theme treats 
directly or indirectly of a child. The adults 
serve as a connecting link, and by contrast 
make the youthful character all the more at- 
tractive. Maire, the childless woman, "hugs 
her heart and whispers in the dead of night 
to the child that isn't born, and will not be." 
She obtains this blessing by the personal visit 
of The Mother of God and The Child Jesus 
on Christmas Eve. Nora, weary of the re- 
straint and trials of parental care, seeks her 
freedom on "the roads," whence she is recalled 
by a vision of The Saviour on His dolorous 
way: "Let me go with you Jesus, and carry 
your cross for you." Brigid of the Songs with 
the pride and unconquerable perseverance of 
the Celt, walks from Galway to Dublin to com- 
pete for the prize. She succeeds and by her 
death wins "a greater reward than the first 
prize." A loving kindness toward his little sick 
sister tempts Anthony to rob a doll. But "con- 
science doth make cowards of us all." The thief 
confesses his sin and receives from the priest 
the untheological penance to clean the doll's 

18 



house once in the week for Eibhlin. With a 
futile expectancy the return of Coilin is awaited 
by the Keening Woman. Much self-sacrifice 
to procure his release from prison ends only 
in the sad news of his untimely death. Iosa- 
gan (Little Jesus), playing with the boys, 
converts old Matthias. Padraigeen, with a 
shirt for an alb and a school-book for a Missal, 
plays at saying Mass. His mother, remember- 
ing that coming events cast their shadow be- 
fore, says to herself: "My little son will be 
a priest. And how do I know that it's not a 
Bishop he might be by and bye?" Brideen is 
taught the lesson that old friends are best, 
and that death is the greatest test of one's 
love for a friend, by her rejected doll, Barbara, 
falling from the dresser at the critical moment 
to save her from burning. Eoineen of the 
Birds, with the gift of a Saint Francis of 
Assisi, converses with the swallows. In the 
Autumn he departs with them "to the country 
where it does be summer always." With a 
superstition arising from the simple faith of 
the Irish in the power of a priest, the death 
of a little girl is attributed to the Dear Daol, 
the cursed woman. 

Since "brevity is the soul of wit" these tales 
are its synonym. Nor is the narration incom- 
plete because of this. The tale is told and the 
moral lesson taught with a grace and sweet- 

19 



ness in these where children are the centre of 
the theme, , and with somewhat of severity 
where they play a minor part. The contrast 
may be accounted for by the application to 
life in Ireland of the idea contained in Saint 
Paul's expression: "When I was a child, I 
spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I 
thought as a child. But when I became a man, 
I put away the things of a child." In the 
morning of life the child is happy amongst his 
toys and baubles. He speaks little and under- 
stands less the wrongs heaped upon his native 
land. Her natural beauty attracts the eye; her 
melody charms the ear, shedding a lustre on his 
young life. When he becomes a man these are 
laid aside and he is confronted with the stern 
reality of an oppressed country. The hopes 
and fears which such a condition begets gives 
us a Muirne of the Keens, and a Coilin. Or 
it may be that there are two different periods 
of time : before and after the invasion of the 
Gall. Certainly he strikes a different note: 
/' allegro, and il pense.ro so. 

Nowhere more than in his stories do we see 
that Pearse possessed the never failing char- 
acteristic of the Irish people: a love of the 
supernatural. Known to his friends to be of 
a deeply religious temperament his writings 
are an utterance from the abundance of the 
heart. Nor is it in prosperity only that he would 

20 



look to God as the Giver of all good gifts. 
Far from regarding adversity as an evil he 
gives it the true Christian significance. Little 
Nora of The Roads imparts the sublime prin- 
ciple: "Blessed are they that mourn." In her 
sorrow "she imagined that the place was filled 
with a sort of half-light, a light that was be- 
tween the light of the sun and the light of the 
moon. She saw, very clearly, the feet of the 
trees, and them dark against a yellowish-green 
sky. She never saw a sky of that colour be- 
fore, and it was beautiful to her. She heard 
a footstep, and she understood that there was 
someone coming toward her from the lake. 
She knew in some manner that a prodigious 
miracle was about to be shown her, and that 
someone was to suffer there some awful pas- 
sion. She hadn't long to wait till she saw a 
young man struggling wearily through the 
tangle of the wood. He had his head bent 
and the appearance of a great sorrow on him. 
Nora recognised him. The Son of Mary that 
was in it, and she knew that He was journey- 
ing all alone to His death. . . . The chain that 
was tying Nora's tongue and limbs till that 
broke, and she cried aloud: 

"Let me go with You, Jesus, and carry 
Your cross for You." 

Those entrusted with the intellectual, moral, 



21 



and religious training of children know the 
value of a story to the young mind. When 
the years of the fairy tale are passed for the 
child and amusement is the least important 
purpose of the instructor, the stories of 
Padraic Pearse will supply the present need. 
Thus will his name he praised and his memory 
cherished not only by the children of to-day 
but by the generations yet unborn. We shall 
see realised his own life's dream: 

"Of riches or of store 
I shall not leave behind me 

( Yet I deem it, O God sufficient) 
But my name in the heart of a child." 
Amongst the poets of the New Literature 
we find the name of Padraic Pearse. His 
contribution was given in 1914, when he pub- 
lished a small volume of poems containing but 
a dozen lyrics in all. The title "Suantraidhe 
agus Goltraidhe" (Songs of Sleep and of 
Sorrow), is appropriate for the emotion in all 
but two of the lyrics, "Lullaby of a Woman 
of the Mountain," and ''Little Lad of the 
Tricks,'' is sadness. It is a sadness, however, 
that does not depress. The two poems on 
death are the expression of the patriot-poet 
who is tortured by the desires of his heart and 
longs for the coming of death that they may 
be quietened by their realization. It is only 
because death is the necessary means, under 

22 



the existing circumstances, to the accomplish- 
ment of his desire that it is : 
"Brighter to me than light of day 

The dark of thy house, tho black clay; 
Sweeter to vie than the music of trumpets 

The quiet of thy house and its eternal silence/' 
The gloom then rather exhilirates than casts 
down. It is a darkness preceding the light ; 
a sorrow that shall soon give place to gladness. 
In view of this it doth appear that there is a 
sequence of thought in the two poems on death 
and the three — "Why Do Ye Torture Me?" 
"The Ideal/' and "I Am Ireland." The former 
are the logical deduction of the latter. 

Even in his poetry he is not unmindful of 
his dear beloved children. In "The Rami of 
a Little Playmate,'' "Little Lad of the Tricks," 
and "To a Beloved Child, 1 ' the poet sings 
about a child ; in "A Lullaby of a Woman of 
the Mountain," "A Woman Keens Her Son," 
and the personal lyric "I Have Not Garnered 
Gold," he shares his song with the little ones. 
The poem, "A Woman of the Mountain Keens 
Her Son" reminds us of the story of almost the 
same name and subject. 

These together with "O Little Bird," already 
quoted in this essay, and "O Lovely Head,'' 
in which Ireland is addressed as a beautiful 
woman, but without the hope and jubilation 
expressed in William Rooney's "O Dear Dark 

23 



Head," comprise the entire volume of which 
Thomas MacDonagh writes in his book, "Lit- 
erature in Ireland": kk One need not ask if it 
be worth while having books of such poetry. 
The production of this is already a success for 
the new literature/" And again, "I think them 
good poetry and true poetry." 

It can hardly be true of his poems what was 
said of his stories that they lose little or none 
of their value in the English translation. The 
translations are literal and consequently much 
of the "verse-music" is absent. This may be 
asserted of translations from all languages and 
more particularly of Irish when the poet, as 
in the present instance, uses some of the older 
forms of verse which came to him not in writ- 
ten records but by oral tradition. When the 
poet puts his wine in old bottles the transla- 
tor who serves up the same in new bottles is 
not giving the original. The verse-music of 
the Celt cannot be reproduced in bottles shaped 
in an Anglo-Saxon mould. James Clarence 
Mangan, an Anglo-Irish poet of the nineteenth 
century, may appear to be an exception. He 
is not. Mangan's translations from the Irish 
are no more mere translations than those from 
the German. What he gives is one-third the 
original and two-thirds Mangan. It is not a 
translation. It is original verse. 

Apart from the versification the poems of 

24 



Pearse retain their intrinsic worth in the Eng- 
lish version. Writing about this "Suantraidhe 
agus Goltraidhe" MacDonagh says: "Writ- 
ten in English, it might well have had a sure 
success." At the present time it bids fair 
for the translation meeting with this success. 
Poetry has been defined as "the expression of 
the beautiful in rhythmic verse." The trans- 
lation of such into any language will retain 
the thought of the beautiful and the thought's 
expression, even though the rhythm may be 
absent. The soliloquies of Hamlet and the 
passionate outbursts of Othello are things of 
beauty in any language. Dante is read and 
admired by the many who are unacquainted 
with Italian. Such is the case, in a humbler 
way, with the translated poems of Pearse. We 
learn his thoughts of God, of country, and of 
children, and are attracted by the simplicity 
and tenderness of their expression; we gain an 
insight into the aspirations of his profound 
yet childlike soul. 

The twelve "Songs of Sleep and of Sorrow," 
"The Dord Feinne," "Christ's Coming," and 
probably "Song for Mary Magdalen," and "The 
Rami of a Little Playmate"-— I say probably, 
because they are taken from "The Master" of 
which no Gaelic manuscript is extant — are the 
bulk of his poems written in Gaelic. Some 
half-dozen written in English show the force 

25 



of MacDonagh's criticism that even using 
English as the vehicle of expression he is no 
mean poet. "The Fool/ 5 and "The Rebel" 
strike a personal note and are prophetic. In 
these verses the poet has laid aside the emo- 
tion of sorrow, and whilst there is present a 
pity and tenderness, they throb with a 
righteous defiance. "The Fool" and "The 
Rebel" or — to paraphrase the two in one — 
"The Rebel/' who is regarded as a fool by 
those who are unable or are loathe to under- 
stand the holy aspirations that burn the patri- 
ot's soul, beholds the wrongs of his people, and 
knowing their cause, determines to purchase 
their redemption by paying the supreme price. 
He may be called a dreamer, he is to-day by 
unthinking minds, but he answers : 
"Oh, zeise men, riddle me this: what if the 
dream come true? 

What if the dream come true? and if millions 
unborn shall dwell 

In the house that I shaped in my heart, the 
noble house of my thought?" 
The similarity in thought of these two poems 
to that expressed in "The Singer" has been 
noted. That one man must die to save the 
nation as Christ died to save the world was 
the predominant thought of his life. The ex- 
tent of this sublime conception may be seen 
by the analysis of the short religious poem 

26 



written for "Christmas. 1915": 
"0 King that was born 

To set bondsmen free, 
In the coming battle 

Help the Gael/' 
It is a prayer asking the King of Kings who 
1)v His death freed man from the bondage of 
sin to assist the Gael in the coming effort to 
redeem the nation. Pearse seems to have re- 
garded himself as the Gael called upon to do, 
or at least to assist in doing this noble work. 
Being a fervent Catholic the spiritual aspect 
of the project was uppermost in his mind. The 
analogv — salva revercntia — between the 
work of Christ and that of the Gael appealed 
to him. The Redeemer died on Good Friday 
the despised and rejected of men. Deserted 
even by His friends He appeared to all but the 
faithful few to be a defeated Man. The cause 
for which He suffered was misunderstood by 
many and doubted by some. Time and time 
alone was necessary to witness the triumph of 
apparent failure. "Galillean Thou hast con- 
quered" was soon to be the verdict of the 
world. 

It will be thus with the Gael. He will die 
for his country, and in doing so some of his 
friends will leave him, and many will blame 
him in their heart for. the sorrow he has 
brought into their homes. Apparently a 

27 



beaten man, he will see his efforts checked by 
the numerical superiority of the opposing' 
forces. But the cause will have triumphed. 
Time will see him crowned with the laurel- 
wreath, and the palm of victory in his hand. 
His countrymen will rest in the shadow of 
Freedom's Tree planted on that great day. 

To strengthen the analogy we must remem- 
ber that Pearse always hoped that the day on 
which the first shot would be fired for Ireland's 
freedom might be Good Friday. He did not 
expect nor did he look for an immediate ma- 
terial regeneration. It must first be spiritual. 
His Ireland was the Ireland of the past; the 
Ireland of the high tradition of Cuchulainn, 
"better is short life with honour than long life 
with dishonour," "I care not though I were to 
live but one day and one night, if only my 
fame and my deeds live after me;" the noble 
tradition of Fianna, "we, the Fianna, never 
told a lie, falsehood was never imputed to us," 
"strength in our hand, truth on our lips, and 
cleanness in our hearts;" the Christlike tradi- 
tion of Colm Cille, "if I die, it shall be from 
the excess of love I bear the Gael." 

He would have this the Ireland of the pres- 
ent. Then he turned and beheld with sorrow 
that the soul of the nation was sleeping almost 
in the eternal sleep of death. This soul must 



28 



be awakened if the nation's treasure is to be 
something more than the memory of an ancient 
glory. Sacrifice is the only adaquate means 
for this awakening. He will follow his hero, 
Robert Emmet, in making this supreme 
sacrifice. 

The task then of Pearse and his associates 
in Easter Week, 1916, was not political. Poli- 
ticians had tried, and failed. Politics as such 
had no attraction for him. He was a patriot 
with a most exalted idea of patriotism. To 
him the nation as the individual is composed 
of a body and soul. Like the individual the soul 
of each nation is distinct from all others. It 
must be free to live its own life and to develop 
along its own lines. The soul of Ireland is 
that of the Gael. Men, even Irishmen, must 
be reminded that this soul still lives though 
grown decrepid. Once this soul is regenerated 
and freed from the foreign influence that would 
destroy its very life, then all things else will 
work unto good. 

The work he set himself to accomplish was 
twofold. He would cast off the unjust rule of 
the stranger, and in this very act, complete the 
awakening of the soul of the nation to a con- 
sciousness of its destiny, and its latent power 
to effect its own perfection. The latter is a 
sacred duty. It touches the very well-spring of 
the nation's life. Accordingly, no gross mate- 

29 



rialism should find a place in the means he will 
adopt. To a character such as his the material- 
ism expressed in. the blasphemous saying: 
"God is always on the side of the heaviest ar- 
tillery," is deserving of severe condemnation. 
He will rise in rebellion; he will use the 
weapons of war, but not before he invokes the 
blessing of the God of nations. He will ascend 
the steep of Golgatha in the cause of Ireland 
in the same spirit as His Master ascended it 
for all mankind. 

Little wonder that the event of Easter Week, 
1916, which appeared to be a foolish endeavour 
is in the light of the present conditions in Ire- 
land a glorious success. Little wonder, too, 
that this event which to men who judged from 
a material standpoint only was a fatal tragedy 
in the history of a nation is to-day command- 
ing the admiration of fair-minded men over 
the world. 

The two poems "On the Strand of Howth," 
and "The Wayfarer," are excellent samples 
of Pearse's appreciation of the beautiful in the 
things of nature, and his wealth of poetic dic- 
tion. The music of the waves breaking on the 
strand of Howth; the chant of the blackbird 
and the thrush ; the minstrelsy of birds in 
Glenasmole; the ship rocking in the harbour 
of Dunleary could not be observed and de- 
scribed by one to whom the complaint of 

30 



Wordsworth, "'the world is too much with us, 
. . . little we see in nature that is ours," could 
apply. "The Wayfarer," allowing for the 
sentiment attached to it — it was written in 
Kilmainham jail a few days before his execu- 
tion — is the best of his poems. He describes 
in a manner worthy of the Nature-Poet some 
of the beauties of the world: the leaping 
squirrel in a tree, little rabbits in a sun-lit field 
at evening, bare-footed children happy in their 
play on the sands of an ebbed sea; and then 
sorrowfully he chants his "sic transit gloria 
mundi." 

Although of a serious and taciturn dispo- 
sition, Pearse was not without a sense of 
humour. This side of his character was re- 
vealed to his intimate friends in whose com- 
pany he showed his appreciation and enjoy- 
ment of the ridiculous. His humour was 
never gross, always on an intellectual plane. 
In his writings, though characterised by their 
gravity and pathos, traces of the humorous 
can be detected. For instance, in the Christ- 
mas number 1910 of "An Macaomh," he tells 
the story of a Parish Priest who wanted to 
build a church and had no funds to begin the 
work. The good priest went to the bank for 
a loan When asked by the bank manager 
what security he had to offer, the priest re- 
plied: "Saint Joseph will see you paid." 

31 



"Saint Joseph is an estimable saint," replied 
the bank manager, "but unfortunately he is 
not a negotiable security." This answer 
passed into a proverb amongst commercial 
men, and the manager got the reputation of 
a wit. Before the priest died he saw a church 
in the course of construction, and to-day it 
stands as a beautiful monument to his un- 
swerving faith. Pearse adds, u The laugh, to 
speak without irreverance, is on the side of 
Saint Joseph." He indulges in the humorous 
in his three-verse ballad "Napoleon's Oul' Grey 
Mare." Written in the traditional style of the 
illiterate Irish ballad-maker, it reminds us of 
the itinerant singers on a Saturday evening- 
going from door to door in the streets of his 
native city. Undoubtedly he often heard them 
himself, not only there, but in his travels 
through the different parts of Ireland whence 
he derived no small share of his store of Irish 
tradition. 

Whilst reading the writings of Padraic 
Pearse I had the good fortune to obtain the 
loan of the manuscript of his translation from 
the Irish of an elegy composed by a poet in 
America on the death by drowning of his child, 
and sent to him several years a^o. The o'risr- 
inal was published in An Claidheamh S otitis, 
and later the prose translation appeared in the 
Irish Review. Admitting the defects of the 



32 



English version which Pearse regarded as 
wholly inadequate to express the deep melody 
and exquisite delicacy of the original, it nev- 
ertheless gives us some idea of a poem which 
he himself places among the three best modern 
poems which "most exquisitely associate the 
pity of death with the beauty of childhood.'' 
This and the additional reason that it is not 
contained in the collection — published up to 
the present — of his works, or in any publication 
of my acquaintance, written on this side of 
the Atlantic, justify the insertion here of the 
entire poem : 
'\Och6n, O'Donough! my thousand whispers 

stretched under this sod, 
The sod of sorrow on your little body, my 

utter anguish 
If this sleep were on you in Cill Na Dronod 

or some grave in the west 
I Would soften my suffering, though great my 

hurt, and I would not repine for you. 

Withered and wasted are the flowers they 

scattered on your narrow bed, 
They were lovely for a little time, but their 

radiance is gone, they have no comeliness 

or life: 
And the flower I held brightest of all that 

grew in soil or shall ever grow 
Is rotting in the ground and will spring no 

more to lift up my heart. 

33 



Alas, beloved ivas it not a great pity, the water 

rocking you, 
With no strength in your pulses nor anyone 

near you that might save: 
No nevus was brought to me of the peril of my 

child or the extremity of his need — 
Ah, though Yd gladly go to Hell's deep Hag 

to rescue you. 



The moon is dark I cannot sleep, all joy has 

left me; 
Rough and rude to me the open Gaelic ('tis 

an ill side ) ; 
/ hate awhile in the company of friends, their 

merriment tortures me: 
From the day I saw you dead on the sand the 

sun has not shone for me. 



Alas, my grief, what shall I do henceforth the 

zvorld wearing me, 
Without your chalk-white little hand like a 

breath through the trees on my sombre 

brow, 
Your little mouth of honey, like angel's music 

sweet in my ears, 
Saying to me gently, dear heart, poor father, 

be not troubled. 



34 



Ah, desolate I little thought in the time of my 

hope 
That this child would not be a swift valiant 

hero in the midst of the band, 
Doing deeds of daring and planning wisely for 

the sake of Fodla, 
But He who fashioned us of clay on earth not 

so has ordered." 

The dominant characteristic of Pearse as a 
writer is his nationality and spirituality; the 
nationality of the Gael and the spirituality of 
the true Christian. These being the essential 
elements in the character of the Gael his writ- 
ings will be read and admired by Irish men 
and women in the length and breadth of the 
globe. Children will listen with rapt attention 
to his stories. Boys and girls will witness with 
interest and sympathy the performance of his 
plays. Old men and old women with tear-be- 
dimmed eyes will hear the expression of their 
choicest thoughts in his poetry. The name of 
the Head-Master of Saint Enda's College will 
become, if not already, the household name in 
Irish homes. 

It does not follow that because of this char- 
acteristic his public is restricted to the Irish. 
To every lover of liberty in any land who re- 
gards servitude as an injustice and freedom 
a sacred right, the name of Padraic Pearse is 

35 



deserving- of honour. As the enemy of op- 
pression and the champion of his country's 
cause they award him a niche in the Temple of 
Fame. Like many of his own countrymen 
they regret not having been personally ac- 
quainted with him. Conscious that by his 
works they can know him they shall turn to 
the pages penned by his hand to learn much 
about the man of his age, one of the noblest 
personalities adorning the annals of Irish 
history. They will see that it is not merely 
because of his death that Padraic Pearse is 
renowned. Certainly that death was a glori- 
ous ending to a glorious life. But men have 
died, in other countries, for a noble cause; 
blood has been spilt before in Ireland without 
the same measure of success. His death was 
the consummation of a short but full span of 
years in which every thought, word, and ac- 
tion were devoted to his country's welfare. 
The youth of sixteen summers in the office of 
the Gaelic League, the Head-Master of Saint 
Enda's College, the Commandant-General at 
the head of his men in the Dublin Post Office, 
the martyr in Kilmainham jail is the same man 
striving assiduously for the same end. Men 
with whom ignorance is bliss, and prejudice is 
preferable to reason, stigmatize him as a 
"common rebel," a "dreamer," a "madman," 
a "Bolshevist." By his work we can judge if 

36 



any of this strange mixture of contradictory 
epithets may in justice be applied to him. He 
loved his country and hated the wrongs heaped 
upon her by her enemy. If this be a crime then 
nationality has lost its meaning, and consists 
only in geographical boundaries; patriotism 
exists only in the pages of a dictionary. 

The month of November, 1913, the Irish 
Volunteer movement started. Padraic Pearse 
was one of the pioneers of the Provisional 
Committee. After a short visit to America, 
where to raise funds for Saint Enda's Col- 
lege — he lectured on education, he returned 
to Dublin in the spring of 1914, in time to cast 
his vote against the proposal of John Red- 
mond, the leader of the Irish Nationalist 
Party, to place the Volunteer movement under 
his control. His wise foresight was proved a 
few months later when on the outbreak of the 
European war, John Redmond espoused the 
cause of the British Empire, and began a re- 
cruiting campaign in Ireland. We can conjec- 
ture what line his efforts would have taken had 
he been in control of the Irish Volunteers. In 
two successive conventions of this organization 
Pearse was elected a member of the Executive 
Committee, and was one of the six composing 
the Headquarters Staff. He contributed a 
number of striking articles to a series of prop- 
aganda pamphlets called "Tracts for the 

37 



Times.' 5 His thoughts .on the national ques- 
tion were expressed in The Irish Volunteer, 
the official organ of the movement. Seeing in 
this movement the realization, in part, of his 
life's dream, no labour was too great to under- 
take in training his men to emulate the effi- 
ciency and heroism of the warriors of the 
Heroic Age. One wonders, considering the 
multifarious duties of his college, and his lit- 
erary pursuit, how time could have been found 
to comply with the exacting calls of this or- 
ganization. Ireland was his inspiration, and 
for her he denied himself the necessities of 
life, often working into the early hours of the 
morning. Thus he continued to the end. 

On Saint Enda's Day, March 21st, 1916, he 
addressed the boys at the entertainment in the 
college, in honour of this great saint. It was 
his farewell speech. He remarked that the 
college had gone on successfully for eight 
years. He hoped it would do so for eighty. 
Then reminding the boys they were trained to 
be efficient soldiers in the battles, temporal 
and spiritual, of their country, he repeated the 
thought so frequently expressed in his writ- 
ings, and in harmony with the approaching 
season of The Passion of The Saviour. Little 
thought the students when a few weeks later 
on the day of the Easter vacation they bade 
farewell to their beloved Head-Master that 

38 



this scene was about to be enacted, that he, the 
Gael, was about "to stand before the Gall as 
Christ hung naked before men on the. tree." 
Then dawned the glorious Easter Morn; the 
dawn of Ireland's resurrection. 

The history of the Easter Week Rebellion 
remains to be written. Suffice to say, that 
Padraic Pearse commanded the men through- 
out the country from the General Post Office, 
Dublin, the stronghold of the Volunteers. 
"Commanded" is scarcely the word to use. He 
was too gentle and shy to be a leader of men 
in the strict military sense. Besides he be- 
lieved in leaders being obeyed more because of 
admiration and the stimulus of personality 
than by the imposition of their will upon the 
will of their followers. This idealism, although 
beautiful, is seldom practical, especially in mil- 
itary life. However, it was so in his case. He 
lead by the force of his personality. His men 
were attracted to him with a magnetic attrac- 
tion. They loved their hero and would go any 
length to serve him. 

The Proclamation issued from the strong- 
hold of the Volunteers was signed by seven 
signatories. Padraic Pearse was the first 
name. He was the proclaimed First President 
of the Irish Republic. Of what followed 
nothing can be added to the description of his 
former pupil, Desmond Ryan. " Tearse is the 

39 



soul of this/ said one present while the Re- 
publican flag flew over Dublin buildings and 
the noblest thoroughfare in Europe mounted 
into ruins and ashes. While the streets out- 
side roared skyward in leaping and fantastic 
flames, which made every cobblestone distinct, 
murmuring hideously and lapping the very 
clouds, inside a doomed building stood the 
Head Master unmoved. A cordon of soldiery 
were closing slowly in and around. The deaf- 
ening riot of noise which rifles, machine guns 
and artillery can produce, rang in his ears. 
Upon him of all men in Dublin rested the 
weight of the huge adventure. Staring un- 
flinchingly at defeat he walked the last from 
the darkened tottering house of flame down 
the bullet-swept streets, past the corpses that 
dotted the streets, past sombre alleys lighted 
by the flashes of machine guns to the house 
where Connolly lay wounded. There he stayed 
until he walked thence to surrender and die y 
the old expression of pride and defiance in his 
eyes — the last glimpse men had of the Head 
Master of Sgoil Eanna. He has told us the 
highest thing a man may do is to serve. We, 
his students, have no greater praise for him 
than this: he showed us Ireland." Whilst 
awaiting execution in Kilmainham jail his 
mother sought permission to see her son be- 
fore death. What sorrow to her mother's 

40 



heart to be denied the opportunity of whisper- 
ing into his ear her message of love, and seal- 
ing it with her farewell kiss. This failing, 
Padraic wrote his last message to her, written 
apparently with the unaccustomed composure 
of a man on the eve of execution. He tells her 
that he has written the poem she requested, 
and where it is to be found. This poem is 
again expressive of the mystical meaning given 
to his work. His mother with the note of 
approval of the undertaking commends her 
son to the protection of the Mother of 
Sorrows. 

"'Dear Mary, thou didst see thy first-born Son 
Go forth to die amid the scorn of men 
For whom He died ; 

Receive my first-born son into thy arms, 
Who also has gone forth to die for men, 
And keep him by Thee till I come to him; 
Dear Mary I have shared thy sorrow 
And soon zvill share thy joy." 

The letter closes with a reassurance of his 
love. "Good-bye again, dear mother. May 
God bless you for your great love for me and 
for your great faith, and may He remember 
all you have so bravely suffered. I hope soon 
to see papa and in a little while we shall be all 
together again. I have not words to tell you 
of my love for you and how my heart yearns 

41 



to you all. I will call to you in my heart at 
the last moment. 

At the break of day, May 4th. Padraic 
Pearse stood before a firing-squad. A. soldier 
in life he will die a soldier's death. Four 
bullets were aimed at his head, and four at his 
heart; the head whose every thought, and the 
heart whose every throb was for Ireland. At 
the early age of thirty-six this great man has 
died that the nation might live. Padraic 
Pearse is dead — in body, but the instruments 
of destruction could not destroy his spirit. 
Freed from its prison house of clay it has en- 
tered into the soul of Ireland imparting to it 
new life and strength. It is wafted in the 
breeze over the expansive ocean enkindling 
anew the patriotic fervour of all true Irish- 
men living under the folds of the Stars and 
Stripes of America. 

''His dust is dust of the land that bore him 
But lot his spirit has left the elay 

It walks abroad through the land to-day." 



42 




t/i 



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